Photographs and silkscreen prints made by the 24 first baccalaureate pro textile and leather students.
Artistic intention thought and led by Emmanuel Sapet, photographer.
Creation time conducted on 20 hours spread over 5 half-days, in November 2015.
With Aurélia Westray, French teacher.
Au Casanova vocational school, Givors.
Intervention carried by Stimultania Photography center.
Support by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region as part of the Discovery Region Passeurs de culture call for projects.
Givors and the Rhône river have a long common history. Emmanuel Sapet and 24 high school students set off to explore it: “I suggest that the students focus our work on the use of the river, in the past and today, by using archive images (postcards and photos from the Givors municipal archives) and by taking current shots. For these shots, the students will be both behind and in front of the camera, photographers and actors in the staging. We will also be interested in human traces that would appear as details in the landscape."
Each group therefore has two missions: to watch from afar and to stage themselves in a bucolic and touristy imagery that is often absurd and funny; to look closely and collect traces - of life, of history, of passages. The students discover and immerse themselves in a world they never suspected. The image is a pretext: putting your feet in the water (crazy!), Discussing with the fisherman empty-handed on Tuesday morning, feeling the rays of the sun piercing the clouds, playing with the water, watching the barge passing by and wait for the waves.
The material collected is then used for two purposes, linked and complementary: the details and traces are screen-printed on bags and sarongs made by the students; the “acrobatic walks”, “plongeons bonheurs” and other staging are printed on double-sided posters and presented on Wednesday, May 11, during the closing event of the five artist and public intervention projects carried by Stimultania on Givors in 2015-2016.
Production: 120 double-sided A2 posters; silkscreen prints on bags and pareos.
Born in 1977, Emmanuel Sapet is an author photographer living in Valence. After studying Modern Letters and Political Science, he left to work with the French cultural services in Romania. The three years spent in this country made him aware of the gap that there can sometimes be between media imagery and the much more complex realities of which he is witness. Upon his return, he studied photography at the University of Paris 8. Introducing himself to documentary practice, Emmanuel Sapet sought to develop a transmission of information based on long-term observation.
